The Glasgow, Dumbarton and Helensburgh Railway was independently sponsored to build along the north of the River Clyde. It opened in 1858, joining with an earlier local line serving Balloch. Both were taken over by the powerful North British Railway in 1865, and for some time the line was the main route in the area. As industry developed other lines were opened to serve it, and the line formed the core of a network in the area.
The line was electrified as part of a modernisation scheme in 1960, and it continues today as the trunk of the North Clyde network west of Glasgow.
History
Before authorisation The communities of Dumbarton and Helensburgh were important staging points on the road from Glasgow to the western seaboard of Scotland, and were well served by small boats on the River Clyde.
Most of the first railways in Scotland were the coal railways, designed to convey coal or other minerals from a pit to a port or a canal for onward conveyance. Generally these lines used horse traction and were short.
In 1842 the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway (E&GR) started its operations, and showed what an inter-city railway could do, carrying passengers and goods over a longer distance. Towns served by the new railway immediately felt the advantage, as the necessities of life, particularly coal and lime for farm use, became much cheaper, and the transport to market of locally manufactured goods was also immeasurably improved.
The notion of long-distance railways, and a network, took hold of the public imagination, and the easily available money of the 1840s led to a frenzy of Scottish railway promotion. Intrinsic in this was the question of how the cities of central Scotland might best be linked with the emerging English railway network. This culminated in the authorisation of a large number of Scottish lines in 1844 - 1845.
Those railways, notably the North British Railway, the Caledonian Railway and the Glasgow and South Western Railway, had their own priorities, which in most cases was to consolidate the area in which they were dominant. At first the north bank of the Clyde was left to the river boats.
In 1846 the Caledonian and Dumbartonshire Junction RailwayThe company chose the spelling Dumbartonshire; in the nineteenth century both spellings were common, although in the twentieth century the County administration was spelt Dunbartonshire. (C&DJR) was authorised, to connect with the E&GR near Cowlairs and to build a railway to Balloch, on Loch Lomond; at the time the River Leven was the centre of a considerable industry in textile printing.
The C&DJR was unable to raise the capital necessary to build all of its line, and it had to content itself with building from Bowling through Dumbarton to Balloch, relying on Clyde steamers to close the gap to the city.
The Glasgow, Dumbarton and Helensburgh Railway
The C&DJR line was remarkably successful, and that only emphasised the potential of a railway that truly connected the area north and west of Dumbarton with Glasgow.
Local people promoted a railway to close the gap, and the Glasgow, Dumbarton and Helensburgh Railway was authorised by the (18 & 19 Vict. c. cxc) on 15 August 1855, to build a line from Cowlairs, on the Edinburgh and Glasgow line, to Helensburgh. Trains would use the Queen Street passenger terminus and Sighthill goods depot of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway. The authorised capital was £240,000.
The line was to link with the Caledonian and Dumbartonshire line and run over it in the centre of its route, and the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway was to operate it. The planned line ran round the north of Glasgow, avoiding construction in the built up area. The directors were proud of their local support; much English capital had supported the construction of the earlier trunk railways of the 1840s, but those days were past.
The company agreed to repay the C&DJR company half of the cost of the River Leven bridge at Dumbarton.
Opening When the construction was nearly complete, a disagreement with the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway arose over the terms of using the Queen Street station. Instead of using that company's terminal facilities, on opening day the GD&HR trains ran to the Caledonian Railway Buchanan Street station from Sighthill. The opening took place on 28 May 1858. However a month later agreement emerged with the E&GR and the more convenient arrangement of running to Queen Street resulted from 30 May 1858.
The line west of Dumbarton was single, with spartan accommodation at the stations.
The GD&HR was working collaboratively with the C&DJR and most trains, passenger and goods, divided at Dumbarton, with a portion continuing to Helensburgh (GD&HR) and Balloch (C&DJR). Steamer operators had run from Glasgow to Bowling Pier for the onward connection over the C&DJR; that was now futile because of the through railway route, and many of them switched to operating throughout from Glasgow to Dumbarton and River Leven destinations in direct competition with the railway; they had to reduce their fares drastically in view of the speed disadvantage they suffered.
The GD&HR had intended to operate onward steamer connections from Helensburgh to the Clyde Estuary locations in 1858, but they discovered that the Caledonian Railway, established at Greenock on the south bank, had chartered all the available vessels and were monopolising the service from their own side of the river. The GD&HR had to wait until the following season to start a serious train-and-steamer operation.
They also suffered a rebuff in Helensburgh, where the pier was some distance from the railway station; attempts to obtain agreement to a railway connection to the pier were consistently resisted by the people of Helensburgh.
Absorption As the line was operated by the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, the question arose of selling the line to that company; the C&DJR was in the same position. The absorption took place on 14 August 1862 when the GD&HR and the C&DJR ceased to exist: the line was owned by the E&GR.
The E&GR itself did not have a long independent existence after that date; the North British Railway was becoming more powerful and absorbed the E&GR on 31 July 1865.
The NBR was conducting a competitive war against the rival Caledonian Railway, and it immediately established a steamer service from Frisky Wharf (the C&DJ pier at Bowling) and Greenock, gaining a foothold there in Caledonian territory.
Steamer connections The North British had a subsidiary, the North British Steam Packet Company, which operated steamer connections to Firth of Clyde piers. The services from Helensburgh were not greatly successful, and it was clear that the Helensburgh pier was unsatisfactory in the absence of a direct railway link. On 15 May 1882 a new pier was built at Craigendoran, a mile or so east of Helensburgh, and a short railway spur there gave a direct connection. Only from that year was the NBR able to operate a successful steamer connection to Rothesay and the other important Clyde locations. The town of Helensburgh contested the establishment of the Craigendoran pier, fearing the loss of trade at their pier, even though they had refused a railway connection to it. Indeed, they defeated the first Bill in Parliament, and the NBR had to resubmit a Bill in the 1879 session; the cost was to be £35,000. (It actually cost £50,000.) The NBR acquired an additional steamer, Sheila, to supplement Dandy Dinmont and Gareloch.
The line had previously run dead straight approaching Helensburgh (approximately along the alignment of the present day Marmion Avenue and Monaebrook Place) but to accommodate the Craigendoran Pier station adjacent to the through line, a new southerly sweep was introduced and the old straight route abandoned. The garden of no. 2 Marmion Avenue contains an original stone arch bridge over the Drumfork Burn.
In the year 1896 it was reported that Greenock to Glasgow commuters were being encouraged to cross the Clyde by steamer to Craigendoran, and to travel to Glasgow from there by the NBR trains.
Glasgow routes The GD&HR route had always been reached from Glasgow by a roundabout route: the line left Queen Street in a north-easterly direction and arched round the north of the city to run west to Dumbarton and Helensburgh. The line was not planned as a suburban railway; in fact the first station on leaving Glasgow was Maryhill, then an isolated rural town, followed by Dalmuir.
The town of Milngavie was home to considerable industrial activity, especially in the field of textiles and paper making, and the independent Glasgow and Milngavie Junction Railway was opened in 1863. It connected to the GD&HR line at Milngavie Junction; it was not until 1913 that a station was opened at the junction: it was Westerton. The Glasgow and Milngavie Junction Railway was absorbed by the NBR in 1873.
Responding to the shortcomings of quay facilities in Glasgow, the Clyde Trustees undertook an ambitious project from 1871 to build a large dock at Stobcross, on marshland on the north bank downstream. This became the Queen's Dock, and it opened in 1874.
The North British Railway wished to access these new industrial developments, and foreseeing the demand for mineral transport in connection with the construction of the Queen's Dock, built a connecting line to it, the Stobcross Railway, leaving the GD&HR line at Maryhill and running south and then east. It opened on 20 October 1870, and it formed an important goods artery for NBR. In 1874 the short Whiteinch Railway was opened, leaving the Stobcross line near Jordanhill, and running to an area of industrial development on the Clyde.
The pattern of developing heavy industry to the west of the city was increasing, to satisfy the demand for more spacious sites and easy access to the Clyde for river transport. For shipbuilding purposes, access to a wider section of the Clyde was important as the vessels being produced were larger in size than in the past. The area that became known as Clydebank became the centre of considerable heavy industry development from 1871. In 1882 the Glasgow, Yoker and Clydebank Railway opened to serve those area. It left the Stobcross and Whiteinch lines near Jordanhill and ran west close to the Clyde, to a terminus at Clydebank.
The NBR now had a network of lines in the developing suburbs west of Glasgow, but the long circuit to reach the Queen Street terminus was a deterrent, and it was not until the Glasgow City and District Railway opened in 1886 that a direct route was available. The GC&DR was a sub-surface route running east to west through the centre of Glasgow, connecting in to the NBR lines and forming a direct run towards Dumbarton.
A short branch to Ruchill was opened in 1886; it ran from the GD&HR route at Possilpark Junction; a considerable industrial complex had arisen at Ruchill, on the east side of the Forth and Clyde Canal.
The Dumbarton and Balloch Joint Railway